Dear List members:
Recentely on the unofficial Full Thrust Web page there has been
a slight interest in near-future/interplantery backgrounds for Full
Thrust. We have seen a several examples of interstellar backgrounds
on web page from TV series and 1 novel. I have been digging through
my collection of
role-playings and have found a few backgrounds of interplantery based
settings. High Colonies RPG and The Jovian Chronicles. High Colonies was a RPG
done the late 1980's that focussed on the surviving space colonies after a
nuclear holocaust. The game has a good listing of stations, corporation, and
organizations. There are even a few alien races, this game might worth
tinkering around for an interesting setting.
The Jovian Chronicles deals with the politics in the solar system,
history,organizations,mecha and a fair selection of space craft.
The ideas that I am suggesting are trying to focus on a non-flt
setting.
> Recentely on the unofficial Full Thrust Web page there has been
If you are referring to my near future rules, I plan on making a few changes
rather soon.
Later,
Dear Mark:
Yes I was making reference to your items and a few peoples items on the web
page
An Idea I've had is using the board and maybe the background of the "Buck
Rogers: Battle for the Solar System" game. Using the "transit" lines to move
back and forth, ships sensors, (and more powerful planetary based ones) would
need a chance to spot incoming fleets, (mods for ECM?), I'd rule transit
battles out, as the fuel requirements to accelerate to transfer speed, (say
escape a
battle by acceleerating to speed 30+?) and decellerate on the other
end, would be prohibitive. If two fleets do pass on the same transit line,
give them a chance to take one set of pot shots at each other
as they scream past, IF they detect each other. (ECM/ Weasel boats,
etc. would modifiy) Once on the ground you fight DSII or Stargrunt battles.
(Raids for SG, invasions in DSII) Each planet is divided into regions and all
players agree how many battles to fight to take a region. (I'd suggest best of
3) Modify some ot the game rules to show production and I think it's work
rather well. Unfourtunatly, I no longer have my game, (and since disscovering
GZG series I've been kicking myself alot about selling it) so if anyone does
try it, let me know if it works!:)
Randy Randy Campbell
For Something Out of This World
Check Out: http://www.millennial.org
> campbelr@pop3.kunsan.af.mil writes:
@:) An Idea I've had is using the board and maybe the background of @:) the
"Buck Rogers: Battle for the Solar System" game.
My group did this for a short campaign. We worked out some simple rules for
movement and combat and managed to get a halfway workable campaign system
together. There were some problems that I would remedy if we did it again,
however.
The Buck Rogers' map of the solar system consists of a number of concentric
circles, each representing an orbit. Each circle has a number of dots on it
which are locations at which ships can be placed. The outer orbits have more
dots than the inner ones, and the dots are connected in a regular spiral
pattern with dots on the neighboring orbits. In addition to this, there are
four "planetary displays" representing Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. The
displays show a map of the planet divided into sections. Planets have far and
near orbit spaces as well as surface spaces. There are also maps of twelve
asteroids, each of which consists of a surface space and a single orbit space.
We allowed ships to move a number of dots equal to their thrust in a strategic
turn, but ships with FTL could move d6 times their thrust. Initiative rolls
were made at the beginning of a strategic turn to determine order of play, and
then each player was allowed, in turn, to move a ship or group of ships from
one location to another. Players could move through each others' fleets only
with permission. When one fleet entered the space of another without
permission, a battle would take place in that space. Fighters were allowed to
attack targets in neighboring spaces, and were frequently used to support
attacks by ships without exposing the carrier to danger. Cloaked ships were
allowed and were moved secretly while cloaked.
Our fleets were generally quite small - we began the game with very
limited budgets (500 points?) and players gained points by capturing and
holding territories. As the game progressed, we moved from corvettes and
frigates to cruisers and some carriers. We also placed random "native" forces
in the territories, which kept the players from running into each other too
quickly. Most dreaded among these was, curiously enough, the "two heavy
fighter groups" threat, because many of us designed our ships with no fighter
protection to save money. Ship production times were based on number of
territories held.
We did not include any ground combat, but the game seems well suited to it.
Overall, I think this campaign worked well, although we didn't quite finish.
The forces involved increased steadily and as we ended the game, a large
battle was about to take place which would have almost certainly decided the
outcome of the game. I think our victory condition was similar to those in the
original Buck Rogers game and involved holding two planets or a planet and a
number of asteroids. This allowed some flexibility in the plans of the players
and meant that it wasn't always immediately clear what a player's strategy
was.
Anyway, I think it's a great idea, and the map is very useful for Full Thrust
games. It's probably hard to find now but you should be able to get it cheaply
if you do find it. I should think someone
could come up with an extremely similar but not copyright-infringing
map as well, if necessary.